howl

When is a biopic not a biopic?

By Devin D. O’Leary

Actor James Franco had an interesting 2010. To say the least. He played a perverted, pillow-loving version of himself on “30 Rock.” He joined the cast of a soap opera for a while. He stars in this fall’s Oscar-baiting feature 127 Hours—in which he plays the rock climber who amputated his own arm with a pocket knife. Within the last week, Franco was named co-host of next year’s Oscar telecast. And now he pops up in Howl, a multimedia independent biopic about Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg.